Amanda Todd, the 15-year-old Canadian teenager whose suicide earlier this month provoked a flood of sympathetic outrage, endured one torment after another in the years leading up to her death: sexual exploitation online, cyberbullying, a physical assault at school.

Suicide is always a complicated tragedy that leaves behind many questions and few answers, and Todd's case is no different. Yet her story, and the many others like it that have made headlines recently, are a heartbreaking illustration of the link between victimization and suicide in young people.

A new study, published this week in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, offers fresh evidence for this link, showing that several types of abuse, and not just bullying, are closely associated with suicidal thoughts in children and teens.